Shocking revelation: Tom Bass Park piranha probably was a lone wolf

Mike Gore of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's inland fisheries division nets works to recover an electricity-stunned fish from the lake in Tom Bass Park near Pearland. Thursday, the state employed an electrofishing boat on the 23-acre lake where a piranha was caught in August. No piranhas were found during the electrofishing sweep. (Shannon Tompkins/Chronicle)

An electrofishing effort Thursday on the 20-plus-acre lake in Tom Bass Regional Park near Pearland turned up scattered largemouth bass, one spotted gar, a scattering of small sunfish and a single tiny tilapia.

But no piranhas.

This piranha is only the second one verified to be found in Texas waters. The other piranha documented in the state was taken in 1982 from Boerne City Reservoir in Kendall County. (Texas Parks & Wildlife)

While the sampling, conducted by staff of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s inland and coastal fisheries divisions, can’t be considered conclusive, it supports the theory that a red-bellied piranha caught Aug. 27 from the Harris County park was a single fish illegally released into the popular urban fishing spot.

The piranha, caught by 5-year-old Lindsay Schutte who used a piece of hot dog as bait, was only the second documented piranha caught in Texas.

Using a large, flat-bottomed aluminum boat fit with an electricity-producing generator and devices which send pulses of current into the water, temporarily stunning fish, TPWD inland fisheries division’s Bill Johnson and Mike Gore along with Lance Robinson and Brenda Bowling of the agency’s coastal fisheries division spent a couple of hours “shocking” the entire perimeter of the lake and using dip nets to collect any suspicious fish.

The tilapia was the only non-native species collected.

While the electrofishing results are an excellent way to inventory freshwater fisheries, particularly in such small waters, it is not a definitive sampling. Shocking works only in relatively shallow water.

The park lake, which was a commercial “borrow pit” from which soil was removed and sold prior to the county getting the tract, is as much as 35 feet deep – far too deep for the electrofishing boat to sample.

Robinson, upper coast regional director for coastal fisheries, said he hopes to employ one of the agency’s gill nets to in the lake’s deeper sections to check for any other piranhas that might be lurking in the waterway.

Mike Gore holds a largemouth bass recovered and released during a Thursday electrofishing sweep of a 23-acre lake in Tom Bass Park near Pearland where a piranha was caught in August. (Shannon Tompkins/Chronicle)

The surfacing of a piranha at the lake underscores the growing problem of illegally released invasive species in Texas, and the threat they can pose to native ecosystems. Piranha, a carnivorous species native to South America, is among dozens of species of non-native fish Texas law prohibits being possessed or released.

Fisheries managers are concerned that releases of other exotic species, often “aquarium” fish owners tire of caring for or that grow too big for tanks, will establish themselves and further damage Texas native fisheries.

Chances are, fisheries managers say, any piranha released into Texas waters would not survive its first winter. When water temperature drops below 50 degrees, the warm-water species metabolism slows and the fish suffocates.